Kris Attfield is the author of three books: The Book of Finch, Letters to Whomever, The Eagle's Sore: A Novella and Pfhonge, The Inter-Continental Brink of Madness, Air Defence, Doorless Darts and Blaine Bananatree - a bunch of video games.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

A Strange Comparison

I think this is very strange:::

The church told me I'd hear the voice of the holy ghost in the patriarchal blessing. When I heard the voice, I thought what it said was actually reasonable. But when I told my bishop what the voice said, it was immediately held as untrue --- I am actually just insane.

So, I'm insane for hearing a voice they told me I'd hear.

Compare that with how church leaders when I grew up would keep bringing up "A Self Inflicted Purging" by Vaughn J Featherstone which only serves to shame the young men about very small imperfections. The only solution this talk gives for stopping masturbation is to "transmute" the urge - or in other words to transmute the chemicals that cause the urge.

That's right everyone!! The church is telling me I'm crazy for hearing a voice they told me I'd hear, and now they want us to magically change our body chemistry - it's straight out of general conference and it must be important, seeing as how they kept bringing it up.

So: when you are told you are going to hear the voice of the holy ghost, and you hear it -- that is actually just insanity according to my past bishop.

And the past bishop and friends would keep bringing up all the shame of small imperfections, and the only solution is to use magical powers to change the chemicals in our bodies. Although, they never actually emphasized the solution, and never explained exactly how that was supposed to be done --- it was all about concentrating on the shame of our small, little, essentially meaningless imperfections.

Very confusing.

"God is so kind, loving, merciful and gracious that he couldn't even save Avril Lavigne's soul just because she's a rock star".

That is what the church taught me, this is LDS logic for you.

EDIT::::

Upon further examination of Elder Featherstone's talk, he seems to feel that the urge to have sex, or the urge to masturbate, is actually caused by THE DEVIL -- not body chemistry.

I am very sad now. I grew up with this talk, always shaming us about sex, leaving church meetings early, and drinking caffeine.

I was told I'd hear the voice of the holy ghost, but the voice of the holy ghost is actually just my brain chemicals having problems.

And I'm supposed to understand according to Featherstone that the urge to masturbate is not body chemistry - it's the devil.

For a church that says insanity is caused by brain chemistry, that the voices are brain chemistry, and not any sort of spirit --- it's absolutely amazing that I grew up with this talk that tells me masturbation is caused by satan.

I know for a fact that the chemicals in our body may have everything to do with our sex drive, and I can only understand that word "transmute" to mean we have to magically change our body chemistry --- even though it's insane to think the holy ghost could have spoken.

It's insane to think the holy ghost has spoken, but it's OK to blame masturbation on the devil and to say that we need to magically change something about our urges.